Often, those of us involved in children’s or young adult literature make lists without realizing that we’re making lists.

Four panelists that you’re considering for a session proposal for an upcoming conference? That’s a list.

Books selected for display face-out on a library or bookstore shelf? Also a list.

Authors or illustrators selected one by one for a recurring feature on your blog or in your newsletter? It may come together gradually, but over time, that’s a list, too.

Whether you’re creating a list of your own or thinking about sharing one that somebody else made, you’ve got an opportunity to better reflect the diversity that exists among the readers of children’s and YA books.

It’s an updated version of a graphic I’ve previously posted here. This new version has been edited by Karen Blumenthal, redesigned by Janie Bynum, and considerably improved by their efforts.

We hope you will share it widely (don’t forget the #kidlitwomen hashtag) and refer to it often (wouldn’t a color print look great on a wall in your office?). And, of course, we welcome your feedback in the comments below.

Last November I was speaking on a panel of nonfiction authors at the annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of English. There was a question about subjects we’d wanted to write about, but which another author had gotten to first.

I mentioned two musicians that I had written multiple drafts about: trombonist Melba Liston (subject of Katheryn Russell-Brown and Frank Morrison’s Little Melba and Her Big Trombone) and bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, whose picture book biography — as I told the crowd — was on its way from author Barb Rosenstock.

I didn’t know Barb Rosenstock. All I knew was that she had beaten me to the punch.

Well, right after the panel ended, a grinning stranger approached me up at the dais. “I’m Barb Rosenstock,” she said.

Here we are a few months later, and I’m so glad that there’s now a splendid version for young readers of this tale I had hoped to tell, Blue Grass Boy: The Story of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass Music (Calkins Creek). And I’m also glad to be able to share that book with you through a giveaway — and with a quick Q&A with my friends Barb Rosenstock and illustrator Edwin Fotheringham.

In its review of Blue Grass Boy, School Library Journal says, “The author adeptly and squarely aims this book at the intended audience by highlighting details young readers can connect with, such as Monroe being the youngest of eight children and growing up with a left eye that turned inward (esotropia). In both the narrative and the back matter, readers witness Monroe’s trials with his eyesight and his resulting development of a fine-tuned sense of hearing which helps him make a big impression on the music world. The digital illustrations are vibrant with a retro feel. Natural elements ranging from trees to blue skies and animals are the most dominant images and complement the imagery of Monroe’s music.”

To a single winner, I’m giving away two author-signed copies of Blue Grass Boy — one to keep and one to share. If you’re a Bartography Express subscriber with a US mailing address and you want the winner to be you, just let me know (in the comments below or by emailing me) before midnight on March 31, and I’ll enter you in the drawing.

Chris: Blue Grass Boy is one of relatively few literary-quality nonfiction books for young readers about country music or about musicians who have frequented the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, despite the massive, longstanding popularity and cultural influence of that genre. Did that lack of other books have anything to do with what drew each of you to the story of Bill Monroe and bluegrass music?

Barb: Yes and no. Initially, like almost all my books, the idea for Blue Grass Boy came about by accident. In this case while driving my older son back to college in Indiana, I wound up a bit turned around in the town of Bean Blossom, home to the longest-running bluegrass festival in the world.

I filled up my car in town, and kept seeing references to someone named “Bill Monroe.” I stopped near the festival site and found myself fascinated by some Monroe memorabilia in the small museum there. My younger son and my father are both traditional-country fans, but I was not at all familiar with bluegrass history. I could not believe Monroe was credited with inventing an entire genre of music — and really that no other human had ever done that before (or since!).

On the long way back to the interstate, I [listened to] Blue Grass Junction … as I drove through rural Indiana with the windows down. Something about this music and the landscape stuck in my head. At home when I started researching Monroe, I realized that there were few (any?) children’s books about bluegrass, country, or the Opry — this whole important, influential set of American music history. Since it didn’t already exist, that motivated me even more to tell Monroe’s history to children. I learned so much and hope kids will, too.

Edwin: Being the illustrator and not the author, when Barb’s manuscript about Bill Monroe was offered to me, I figured there was probably a void in this category, to be honest. ;)

Seriously though… I had an extraordinary prior experience that made me view Bill Monroe with real interest as a character for young readers. I was traveling on a solo overnight bike tour from my home in Seattle to Lopez Island in the San Juan archipelago, and decided to camp halfway at a place called Fort Worden outside Port Townsend.

Making my way to my campsite I noticed, unexpectedly, the sound of fiddle music — live fiddle music, not recorded. After setting up camp I walked to the common area and saw multitudes of folks outside their tents and vans playing fiddle music. I was astounded that the ages of these people lay in two distinct generations: younger (teens, twenties, early thirties) and older (late fifties, sixties). My generation (I’m now 52), having had punk rock take our musical interests elsewhere, was not very well represented!

The event, I found out, is called Fiddle Tunes. Attendees participate in workshops, impromptu late night jams, breakfast breakouts, concerts, and square dances, all while camping out together. Fiddlers (as well as bassists, guitarists, banjo and mandolin players) from all over the world converge and strut their stuff… be it Celtic, Old Time, Quebecois, Cajun or Bill Monroe’s American bluegrass. I could see that there was a connection between seemingly disparate generations that was linked by this music. I was impressed, and felt lucky to observe the scene completely by chance (bike touring is like that, by the way).

In Barb’s writing I felt the excitement that I witnessed at Fiddle Tunes. I was attracted to the notion that Bill Monroe was able to create a brand-new genre, an American genre, by keeping his ears open and putting together elements from physical and artistic sources borne by his interactions, history, and experiences. It is a great thing to impart on young readers: that new things come from what you already know and what you are about to find out.

Chris: Once you got involved in the actual creation of this book, what role did music — Monroe’s, or others’, or other sounds, or silence — play in your process?

Edwin: I listened to Monroe’s music to get a feel for the elements that make bluegrass distinct from other string genres — namely the banjo and his mandolin playing. After that I went back to my 20-year-old self and put on the Stooges. There’s nothing like music to pull back a few years and feel great, whatever the genre may be. I’m sure those kids playing bluegrass (and everything else) at Fiddle Tunes will feel the same way, just like their much older peers have figured out!

Barb: My writing process is not smooth — it’s a lot of stops and starts, with research before and between, so I keep my office pretty quiet (except for two old dogs snoring.) I look at a lot of pictures throughout a day, but I don’t typically write with any music or other sounds playing.

Blue Grass Boy was different. When I was writing and especially when the story got “stuck,” I listened to two things: nature recordings of Kentucky hill sounds, and Monroe’s own music. His lyrics are really autobiographical too, so I tried to focus on what was important by listening to him. There’s a great two-part video interview of Monroe on his farm in 1986. In a short section near the end, Monroe plays out in the open on his porch, you can hear the sounds around him.

One piece of music that helped a lot for emotional content is a recording of Monroe’s song “My Last Days on Earth.” It starts with water rushing, bird sounds, and then single notes on his mandolin. That song expresses everything I was trying to write about him. No one else’s music could really do that. Basically, Bill Monroe played his life better than anyone could ever write it down.

As promised, my Q&A for the February edition of my Bartography Express newsletter is with my friend Rose Brock. Formerly a school librarian in the Dallas area, Rose is now assistant professor in the Department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University. She’s an expert in young adult literature, and she’s the editor of the soon-to-be-published Hope Nation: YA Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration (Philomel).

Hope Nation is a Junior Library Guild selection, and it includes stirring contributions by Libba Bray, Angie Thomas, Marie Lu, Alexander London, Christina Diaz Gonzalez, and many other accomplished members of the YA community. The authors are all donating their fees to charity, with the publisher matching those contributions.

In the book’s introduction, Rose talks a bit about her own story, including her family’s immigration from Germany when she was in elementary school, the hardships her new life entailed, and what helped her get past them.

“In my childhood home, finding hope was a directive,” she writes. “It was expected that the world’s lemons would be made into fresh lemonade. Perhaps that is the reason I’m an optimist. A dreamer. A hoper. And whether it’s in my genetic makeup to see the glass as half full or it’s a product of conditioning, I love stories of resilience and tenacity, and I look for hopeful stories everywhere—in books, in movies, and most importantly, in real life.”

I’m giving away one copy of Hope Nation. If you’re a Bartography Express subscriber with a US mailing address and you want the winner to be you, just let me know (in the comments below or by emailing me) before midnight on February 28, and I’ll enter you in the drawing.

In the meantime, please enjoy my two-question Q&A with Rose Brock.

Chris: I don’t know if the parameters you provided to your contributors were anything more specific than “Write something hopeful,” though I imagine you must have had a general idea of the sort of pieces they would create. But what did you receive in their essays that you weren’t expecting?

Rose: That’s a great question, Chris. I feel like when I first approached my contributors, I did give them a great deal of latitude in regard to the personal story/essay they wanted to share, but I did ask them to make dig deeply into their own experiences and share about those moments where hope felt elusive.

Since you’ve read the collection, you know that each author tackled this call differently. The one thing each selection in Hope Nation has in common with the others is that what each of these writers shares is simply a piece of a collective human experience. Each of them (and us) has been a teen, and we know that teens are as passionate as people come about the things that matter most in their lives. That’s why hard times for them feel so stinking hard. Without a bit more of what I call “butt time on Earth”, it’s difficult and sometimes impossible to have perspective—you need life experience for that. These writers have that in spades, and these personal stories capture that—abuse, family financial ruin, death, lost body parts, immigrant experiences—it’s all there and more.

So with that said, what was I not expecting? I didn’t expect these contributions to be so personal even though that’s what I asked for—my first idea of this book was that this would be a modern Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, and in some ways it is, but I believe it’s much more than that, too. It’s raw and it’s real, and the thing I love most is that these brave writers of YA (who love their readers the way I’ve loved the thousands of teens I’ve worked with over the years) is that they have opened themselves up in such intimate ways, allowing all of us to see the scars they’ve endured and wear as badges of honor. The stand on the other side of those experiences saying, “I’m still here, and I’m here for you.”

Chris: Hope Nation would be a terrific book to get into the hands of young people eligible to vote for the first time in 2018 or 2020. Are there other particular audiences that you hope will read this book, take it to heart, and get motivated by it?

Rose: In my mind, ALL readers can benefit from this book—I think regardless of age, I want teens to know that they can make hope a decision, one that is definitely rooted in advocacy for themselves and for others.

The inspiration for this book really goes back to two young women in my life who were pretty devastated by the outcome of the 2016 elections. For them, they hated that their voices as marginalized young women went unheard. They wanted a shot to speak up and out, and I think that’s the case with many teens.

As for how that plays out in regard to politics, I think a heightened awareness of the need to never be apathetic or complacent in regard to all types of leadership is essential; certainly that’s the case for our high elected offices, but it’s even a battle cry for us all in our personal worlds and local government.

﻿Truly, it is my hope that this book will inspire all the young people who read it to fight for what they want and what they believe is right—shouldn’t we all do that?

Schools often go to great lengths to get their students excited about an upcoming presentation by a visiting author. That makes sense to me — after whipping up that enthusiasm, educators can then harness it for thoughtful, mind-expanding explorations of that author’s work, and for all sorts of creative undertakings by the students themselves.

Sometimes, though, the anticipation-stoking tactics include the use of certain words or phrases that make me uncomfortable. I feel uneasy when I see them on a sign in front of a school or hear them as part of the introduction right before I start talking to the students. The main ones are:

Famous.

Celebrity.

Rock star. (Yes. As in, “He’s a rock star!”)

I’d guess that most creators of books for young readers aren’t even celebrities in their own neighborhoods, let alone the “world famous” types they sometimes get described as to impressionable students.

But even allowing for a little hyperbole, I’m bothered by these characterizations because they run counter to what I see as the main purpose of my presentations to students: 1) making myself relatable to them, and 2) making a career like mine seem attainable to them.

My introductory slide from my recent visit to Cambridge Elementary in San Antonio.

Right after my greeting to them, I go straight into listing several other things — many of which will be recognizable and familiar to audience members — that I am in addition to “Author.”

These include “Former Kid,” “Texan,” “Son,” “Brother,” “Dog Owner,” “Spanish Learner,” “Researcher,” and “Rewriter,” which I say three more times because I want them to understand the effort that goes into becoming a published author.

Over the course of my presentation I try to replace any air of mystique about my career with a sense of awareness of what this fun, challenging job entails and how happy this hard work makes me.

Then I leave them with my hope that when they’re grown they will find something they love just as much — not an easy job, not a job that brings them fame, and certainly not one that bestows “rock star” status — but rather a calling that suits them.

And not only a calling that suits them, but also one that they can fully participate in without unfair and unnecessary restrictions, distractions, or impediments.

Which brings us to the subject of sexual harassment in children’s publishing, a phrase that I never imagined would find its way onto Bartography when I started this blog nearly 13 years ago. That mostly just shows how privileged and naive I was.

Harassment isn’t new. But the attention it’s getting in this industry — “ecosystem” is more like it, with libraries and booksellers and conferences playing vital roles — is not just new but raw, painful, chaotic, long overdue, and rapidly developing.

As of this afternoon, the best overview I’ve seen of where things stand is this article published this morning by Publishers Weekly. Long story short, a number of men in children’s publishing — guys who I bet have heard themselves described as “rock stars” more than a few times — are being accused of unacceptable behavior. Names are being named.

But what does all of this have to do with you and the young people who look to you for books and guidance? Three things.

First, I believe that young readers will wind up with better books when the creative process and literary life aren’t sullied or ruined for so many by male misbehavior.

Second, as the children’s literature community succeeds in its efforts to become a more hospitable place, there will be fewer obstacles to success for student writers who get encouragement from authors such as me.

And third, the book I’d been preparing to feature in my giveaway in this month’s Bartography Express newsletter includes an essay by an author who, in recent days, has been named in allegations by several anonymous accusers. I do not doubt these women’s stories. But I decided to proceed as planned with the featured book, as even under the current circumstances I believe it offers much more cause for hope than for despair.

For my school visits, I often have a variety of my books displayed on a table so that students will notice them when entering the library. I figure it’s a good way to get them to start thinking about questions they may have for me.

Usually, the table is behind me while I’m presenting, but at a visit earlier this week, the table was on one side of the room next to the audience. (You: “Chris, please tell me more about how the furniture was arranged!”)

He was *very* interested in Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! From the front of the room I noticed that he had taken the book from the table, and that some of his classmates were trying to put it back.

I didn’t mind him having a look at the book. What worried me were the other kids’ efforts to intervene, even if well-intentioned. “Please,” I thought, “let’s not make an issue of this.”

The librarian then sat down next to this student, and she handed him the book. (Me: “Whew!”) For the first part of my presentation, he was captivated by my book in his hands. Eventually, Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! went back onto the table.

Then came Q&A. The autistic student’s hand went up — emphatically — and I soon called on him. But he didn’t have a question — he had an observation.

His observation was that the fonts used for “Attack,” “Boss,” and “Cheat Code,” respectively, corresponded to the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

I thanked the boy and said that the significance of the fonts had not occurred to me, but that it didn’t surprise me.

I told him that the illustrator, Joey Spiotto, knew a lot more about video games than I did and had inserted plenty of gaming references that went over my head. Joey’s art added so many dimensions to this book.

But (and I didn’t say this to the student) I didn’t know for sure whether his observation was accurate. I knew who to ask, though.

So I messaged Joey, passing along the details of the student’s discovery. Then I asked, “I’d never thought of that before – is that how you see it? Was he onto something?”

The reply from Joey: “That was a VERY astute observation on his part!

Joey continued, “I wish I could have said that I planned it that way, but I didn’t. Maybe in my subconscious somewhere, but that’s one of those happy accidents. Amazing that he pointed that out!”

That whole thing has been the highlight of my week. I gotta arrange the furniture that way more often.

Write to Me is a true — and all-too-relevant — account of the correspondence between California librarian Clara Breed and the young patrons who were displaced when their families were imprisoned during World War II. The book immediately brought to my mind the recent rise in the United States of openly expressed xenophobia and the dubious constitutionality of government actions that have been taken in that spirit.

A starred review from Booklist notes that, “The personal story … is full of warmth emanating from Hirao’s radiant, softly shaded color-pencil artwork, from Miss Breed’s relationship with the children, and from the actual quotes from their notes, appearing on small postcards superimposed on the illustrations. A beautiful picture book for sharing and discussing with older children as well as the primary audience.”

I’m giving away one copy of Write to Me. If you’re a Bartography Express subscriber with a US mailing address and you want the winner to be you, just let me know (in the comments below or by emailing me) before midnight on January 31, and I’ll enter you in the drawing.

Chris: Write to Me feels especially timely, but I know that this book has been in the works for a long while. What can you each tell me about your interest in and history with this story — and about your dedication to getting it told and getting it right?

Cynthia: I first learned of Clara Breed — and the children she served in her San Diego library — in 2002. The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles had created a video documentary about her, and I had read an intriguing review of it.

There is a long and rich history of librarians as advocates for intellectual freedom and social justice, and as effective agents of change. I strongly believe in literature’s ability to dissolve the socially constructed barriers [that some people] are so intent on creating. I wanted to learn more about this Clara Breed.

I was a new middle school librarian in Washington, DC, at the time. I scoured the local public library catalogs, the university libraries, and finally California libraries. I couldn’t find any books written about this amazing woman at all, though I did find a book she had written and a few magazine and newspaper articles by her.

So, I took the advice to heart that many established writers and editors give at conferences: “Write the book that you want to read.”

I had lived most of my life in California and was very familiar with the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, but I had never heard of Clara Breed. I spent the next three years researching the war and the incarceration of Japanese Americans, and I finally spent a week in Los Angeles, reading the letters that the children and teens from San Diego had written to their librarian during the three and half years they were imprisoned.

As I finished my first draft of the manuscript in 2005, I emailed a former library professor to tell her what I was working on, and she said, “You have to read this book!” She had in her hands an advanced copy of a book called Dear Miss Breed, written by Joanne Oppenheim. A detailed, fascinating book for older readers about Clara Breed, the children she knew, and the propaganda of World War II.

I was devastated.

But I thought there was still a place for the same story to be told for a younger audience. I sent my manuscript out to many, many publishers over the years and finally sold it in 2015 to Charlesbridge. It took ten years. Then another year of revisions with my editor, which was most rewarding. During those ten years I kept writing. I published numerous poems and essays, and two books before Write to Me made its entrance.

I’m so pleased with the work Amiko has done to bring the story to visual life, and I’m glad Write to Me is finally here. But yes, it is indeed, timely.

Amiko: Thank you so much for the interest in this book. And to Cynthia, I really enjoyed reading your story and it was a great honor to have taken part in this project.

I was struck by the simplicity of Cynthia’s manuscript when I first read it. The story is a great way to communicate what happened in that particular time and place, and to tell the story of this outstanding lady, Ms. Clara Breed.

It is very interesting to read about the librarians in America. I have personal memories of growing up in [Japan and the United States] and going to elementary school in both nations — and the very cozy libraries in the American schools really struck me.

The very enthusiastic librarians had every trick to get us interested in this book or that. In the Japanese school there was no librarian. Just books (and some attendee to sign books in and out).

I do have an interest in World War II history, but as the narrative of war is so vast and complex I do not think it is possible to hope for history to be told in the “right” way.

The postcards seem to show the right way to approach that issue — to observe, and to live the time through real voices.

Cynthia’s restrained prose does great justice to the story of Ms. Clara Breed and to telling the story of World War II.

(I can only hope I was able to match that even halfway…)

Chris: Were either of you letter-writers when you were the age of the children in Write to Me — and if so, is there a particular correspondent or recipient of your childhood letters that comes to mind?

Amiko: I was not much of a letter writer but I did make drawings to correspond with friends in Japan and US every time I moved to each country.

That was actually what surprised me about the letters — that they had only handwriting — and I thought perhaps people were more formal then.

So in a way working on the drawings to go with these letters did feel like a natural thing for me to be working on. I wondered about if the kids wanted to draw on these cards, too.

But in retrospect I probably still wrote many more physical letters than if I was in the same situation as a child today, with email available.

Cynthia: I remember writing letters to my grandmother when I was quite young. This is my earliest memory of writing at all. I have a few of those letters that she had kept and that my mother had given to me some years later. They are hilarious! In one, I thought I was writing to her in cursive, and it is just row after row of loops! Why she kept that one is a mystery. :)

Sometimes my grandmother put a dollar bill in her letters to me, which seemed like a tremendous amount of money then. And she often gave me stationery for my birthday, which made letter writing even more fun. My mom followed in that tradition — in a way — not with stationery, but with postage stamps. Every Christmas, for as long as I can remember, we found stamps in our stockings.

I still love to write letters, but don’t do it as much as I wish, and I love to receive them, too. Such a novelty anymore, as Amiko mentioned, with email and everything else.

Or, more formally, “A Comprehensive List of U.S. College- and University-Sponsored or -Hosted Children’s and Young Adult Literature Conferences, Festivals, and Symposia.” (All of them that I could find, anyway).

Several years ago, I was looking for such a list, wondered why I couldn’t find one, and decided to just go ahead and make one myself.

I’ve got a new nonfiction picture book in the works with Lerner Publishing’s Millbrook Press imprint, publisher of my books on The Nutcracker and on dazzle camouflage. This new project was announced just yesterday in PW Children’s Bookshelf, and here are the details:

All of a Sudden and Forever has been a challenge to write, but I’m so glad for the conversations it’s allowed me to have with people whose lives were forever changed in 1995 by the Oklahoma City bombing. And I love Nicole Xu’s art. I think she’s just right for this project.